Festival opener shines

From The Oregonian
By David Stabler

It's only July, but already, Mozart's 250th anniversary year feels twice as long. We've heard countless sonatas, concertos and chamber music, and enough performances of the Requiem to bury Vienna twice over.

But one piece we haven't heard this year is Mozart's great Mass in C Minor, the largest choral work between the twin peaks of J.S. Bach's Mass in B Minor and Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis."

On Friday, the Oregon Bach Festival opened its 37th season with the magnificent C Minor Mass, but this was not just another performance paying homage to the great man. It was a newly completed version that fills in the parts Mozart left unfinished in 1783. At their best, this is what anniversaries do -- provide fresh insights into familiar work. While a few aspects of the performance fell short, the concert succeeded on the sheer beauty and ingenuity of the music itself. 

After reconstructing Mozart's unfinished Requiem a dozen years ago, scholar Robert Levin seemed the clear choice for the C Minor Mass. His reconstruction premiered in Carnegie Hall last year under the direction of Helmuth Rilling, to positive reviews.

On Friday, Rilling, the German conductor who is also artistic director of the Oregon Bach Festival, led a spirited performance in Eugene's Hult Center of a work that symbolized Mozart's profound religious beliefs. Levin's retrofittings were often inspired, if at times, a bit bland, harmonically. But his fugal writing is sharp and skillful, including a jaunty "Dona nobis pacem" that pulls the Mass out of shadow into sunlight. The chorus sang splendidly, while a handful of orchestra musicians stood out, particularly in the sublime aria "Et incarnatus est": flutist Adam Kuenzel, oboist Allan Vogel and bassoonist Kenneth Munday. Soprano Simone Nold sang the astonishingly intricate aria with tenderness.

We now have a new C Minor Mass that glows with grandeur.